(More) Naked Swimmers

"Botttom's Up" Real Estate Recovery

You don't know who's swimming naked until the tides goes out.
--Warren Buffett

3,500 FSF is the new 5,000 FSF.
--Ross Kaplan

The housing recovery is happening from the bottom up.

As any active Realtor can readily report, the lower the price bracket, the stronger the housing market; the higher, the weaker.

Clearly, that's why Congress is now extending tax incentives to so-called move-up Buyers, rather than just first-time Buyers.

Upper Bracket Woes

So where does that leave owners of upper bracket homes? (In the Twin Cities, three years ago I would have put the threshold for upper bracket homes around $800k; now . . . it's a lot lower.)

In many cases, straining under too-big mortgages on houses that have depreciated in value.

Most at risk are those who bought roughly between 2004-2007, using a lot of leverage; who have jobs or are in businesses most exposed to the recession; and whose other assets, like stocks, are down significantly (although less than last Spring!).

For those folks, the tide is continuing to run out.

That's why I expect the foreclosure pain to continue moving "up market," at least in the short run.

P.S.: one more aggravating factor for would-be sellers of larger, upper bracket homes: Americans' love affair with "big, bigger, biggest" is at least temporarily on hold. I call this phenomenon, "3,500 (square feet) is the new 5,000."